New Lebanese PM Wants Neutrality on Syrian Civil War

Lebanese MP Tammam Salam named the country’s new prime minister, pledging to safeguard the country from the war in Syria.

By Arutz Sheva Staff

First Publish: 4/7/2013, 6:32 AM

Lebanon's newly named PM Tamam Salam

AFP photo

Moderate Lebanese MP Tamam Salam was named on Saturday as the country’s new prime minister, pledging in his first address to the nation to safeguard the country from the war raging in neighboring Syria.

"There is a need to bring Lebanon out of its state of division and political fragmentation, as reflected on the security situation, and to ward off the risks brought by the tragic situation in the neighboring country and by regional tensions," he said, according to a report by the AFP news agency.

Salam, 67, of the Western-backed opposition, made the remarks in his inaugural speech shortly after being tasked by President Michel Sleiman with forming a new government.

While the Mikati government also officially took a neutral stance toward the Syrian conflict, some ministers close to Hizbullah openly expressed their support for Assad.

Last July, as the ongoing civil war in Syria continued, the terror group led by Hassan Nasrallah publicly offered to place itself at Assad’s disposal.

But already several months earlier, a soldier from the Free Syrian Army told The Independent newspaper, published in the UK, that Hizbullah's Shiite Muslim terrorists are full military allies of the Syrian army and that "everyone knows they have fighters there."

Salam, known for his moderation, took a diplomatic tack when turning to the question of the arsenal held by Hizbullah.

"I am with the (anti-Israeli) resistance when it is pointed in the right direction and when it is a matter of defending Lebanon," Salam told AFP.

But "when that arsenal is turned toward the inside of the country for the purpose of influencing the (political) balance, that is straying from the resistance," he added.